September 2, 2017

That's the headline at The New Republic, where, if you click, you'll see a photo with the caption "The author's camera, moments before it was smashed on the ground. Photo courtesy of Thomas Hawk." Thomas Hawk is, obviously, not the author of the article, whose camera got flung by a masked guy wearing a hat that seem to say "Queremos El Rock" (We want the rock?*)

The author is Mike Kessler, who tells us:

Journalists, myself included, held our cameras high to capture the assault as the antifas circled, raising their shields, some decorated with the words “No Hate,” to block our view and push us away.

“Stop filming,” shouted a masked white woman in her twenties, pushing her shield at us. “You know what’s gonna happen anyway.”... Suddenly, from behind, someone knocked my camera out of my right hand.... another antifa picked up my camera, hurled it into the air, and got in my face. “No fucking pictures!”...

To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and one seeks to stop that hate.... Conflating the two groups is a way for whataboutist conservatives to play down the racist rot that is spreading on the right....

For what it’s worth, I’m a middle-aged white guy. The young man who snatched my camera was also white. I looked at him and shook my head. “Seriously, man!? Is that really necessary?” It was all a bit of a blur, but I think my next words were, “Dude, I’m on your side”—meaning the side that finds white supremacists repugnant....

Hey, journalist — you call yourself a "journalist" — how about not being on any side? Have you completely forgotten that idea? Sad about your camera, but what about your ethics? Did somebody grab them too and smash them on the pavement? Or is it still possible to scrounge back somewhere in your head and find them?**
_________________________

* I couldn't find "We Want the Rock," specifically, in English or Spanish, but I did find "We Want a Rock":

There's also "I Wanna Rock":

"Wanna" can be "want a" or "want to." The song title "I Wanna Rock" is, without more, ambiguous. "Rock" could be a noun or a verb. Spoiler alert: It's a verb. In the They Might Be Giants song, you can see from the title that "rock" is a noun, but it's nevertheless hard to guess what they want. They want "a rock to wind a string around."

What does that mean? "This sounds really abstract, but in order to begin wrapping a piece of string around itself, you need something to start with. Like a rock. I guess you can make a ball of string starting from nothing if you just make a tiny loop at the end of the string. But it seems theoretically impossible. It's a metaphor for getting started." In other words, you don't need a rock.

But you can be your own rock. And here's Paul Simon singing what Art Garfunkel told him was his "most neurotic" song, "I Am a Rock":

Speaking of being your own rock, there's The Rock, Dwayne Johnson...

... but don't think he's called "El Rock." In fact, I think "el rock," in Spanish, means rock music. (The little stone is feminine, "la roca.") So after all this, I'm going to nail it down: The camera-flinging masked man wants rock music. So it's pretty much the Twisted Sister video.

** Since I'm doing song lyrics in footnotes this morning, let me indulge myself with something from "Desolation Row":

Praise be to Nero’s Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody’s shouting
“Which Side Are You On?”...

So, if he is on the side of Dude and the rest of the antifas, are we supposed to feel sorry for him or be outraged that he was effectively robbed of his camera which was then smashed? You reap what you sow.

“Seriously, man!? Is that really necessary?” It was all a bit of a blur, but I think my next words were, “Dude, I’m on your side”—meaning the side that finds white supremacists repugnant....

That was obviously a typo. No one with more than two neurons to rub together could write that shit deliberately. The corrected but as yet unpublished sentence follows:

“Seriously, man!? Is that really necessary?” It was all a bit of a blur, but I think my next words were, “Dude, I’m on your side”—meaning the side that wants to wipe its gargantuan ass with the Bill of Rights."

If The New Republic is going anti-antifa, it may be the beginning of the end. Leftist stalwart Noam Chomsky caught hell last week for criticizing antifa on both principles and pragmatic grounds (e.g. a "major gift" to the right). And of course, he is completely right. The latest round of anti-antifa is not so much because of major principles differences (Chomsky is a particularly principles man even if one disagrees with his principles), but because they recognize it's bad for the brand. The media may finally, slowly be realizing that their incessant Trump hysteria, trying to turn every story up to an 11, is backfiring on them.

To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and one seeks to stop that hate....

WRONG. BULLSHIT.

Antifa fascists are on par or much worse than any white supremacist. There is nothing more vile than a violent anti-free speech asshole leftwing progressive "antifa" with a mask, a baseball bat, the will, and the SHIELDED protected-by-media status to do what they do. They contain the desire to steam-roll everyone under the thumb of Marxist Communism. No cameras, please.

Anfita's are as white supremacist as any white supremacist. + Both are Jew hating thugs.

Derb had some nice lines this week, even though he's off the deep end on behavior-racism. I'd like to debate that with him.

At this point everyone outside the crazy white left — the baizuo — everyone with half a brain knows that there are innate, intractable statistical differences between the races in behavior, intelligence, and personality: big differences between black Africans and the out-of-Africa races, smaller differences among those races.

Pretending not to know that is just a social courtesy practiced to avoid hurting the feelings of persons too dimwitted to grasp sophisticated statistical concepts like "average" and "variation."

Or possibly, in the case of gentle souls like Prof. Wax and Ms. Mac Donald (I've had no personal acquaintance with Prof. Alexander), it's a case of knowing but not knowing that you know. This is a phenomenon familiar to anyone acquainted with neuroscience: google "blindsight."

The social courtesy observation is nice, and lines up with what Althouse, being a woman, puts as primary, though Derb is here taking as obvious what I think is wrong.

There are intelligence differences that are big enough to matter on the average, but they don't lead to behavior differences that are anywhere near beyond normal upbringing.

It's normal upbringing that you want to encourage, which gets to Amy Wax's point.

Courtesy would work fine with that upbringing. Good character is a bourgeois value.

Another good Derb line

The arrow of race hatred points from the less capable race to the more capable. Antisemites don't hate Jews because they are a dysfunctional, poverty-stricken minority; they hate them because they are successful. Malays and Indonesians and Filipinos don't hate Chinese merchants because Chinese people are stupid and violent; they hate them because they are smart and successful.

The more capable rarely hate the less capable. They may believe they are dangerous and untrustworthy, and so avoid them. They may feel contempt for them. On the other hand, they may feel paternalistic pity for them. None of those things is "hate," though.

I think that's right, and is why talking about IQ differences is forbidden even though it's a silence that enables all our problems.

Hey, journalist — you call yourself a "journalist" — how about not being on any side? Have you completely forgotten that idea? Sad about your camera, but what about your ethics? Did somebody grab them too and smash them on the pavement?

I listened to Amy Wax on bloggingheads, for a while. She's too afraid to get to the point still. Academic habits.

I love Amy Wax. I read her Race, Wrongs, and Remedies years ago and was thrilled with her performance. Her first BHTV opposite Adam Sewer was a waste of time, as Sewer was simply too facile to keep up with the arguments. Her subsequent dialogues with Glenn Loury (who is miles ahead of most race commenters writing today) have all been fruitful and intellectually stimulating (on both sides). I agree that Wax knows the IQ stuff but is sly enough to sidestep those landmines. You can see that she's in the know (without her ever having to come out and say it), in this article from 2012: The Dead End of “Disparate Impact”

There is no objectivity in journalism today. I have no idea how the classes are taught now but I suspect they are portraying reporters as SJWs---activists for the forces of good against evil. Pathetic.

Every generation of humans must re-learn this. Not just every generation, but about every 15-25 years. You will become the thing you want to hate. You want to hate hatred, so you embrace hate to do so. That's ironic and stupid, but you do it every few years, youngsters.

It hurts to learn that. It will be unlearned again about ten years from now.

Easy solution - pass a law that people attending protests cannot cover their face. If they do, arrest them. I think that would survive a court challenge.

NC General Statutes - Chapter 14 Article 4A

§ 14-12.7. Wearing of masks, hoods, etc., on public ways.No person or persons at least 16 years of age shall, while wearing any mask, hood or device whereby the person, face or voice is disguised so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, enter, be or appear upon any lane, walkway, alley, street, road, highway or other public way in this State. (1953, c. 1193, s. 6; 1983, c. 175, ss. 1, 10; c. 720, s. 4.)

§ 14-12.8. Wearing of masks, hoods, etc., on public property.No person or persons shall in this State, while wearing any mask, hood or device whereby the person, face or voice is disguised so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, enter, or appear upon or within the public property of any municipality or county of the State, or of the State of North Carolina. (1953, c. 1193, s. 7.)

§ 14-12.9. Entry, etc., upon premises of another while wearing mask, hood or other disguise.No person or persons at least 16 years of age shall, while wearing a mask, hood or device whereby the person, face or voice is disguised so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, demand entrance or admission, enter or come upon or into, or be upon or in the premises, enclosure or house of any other person in any municipality or county of this State. (1953, c. 1193, s. 8; 1983, c. 175, ss. 2, 10; c. 720, s. 4.)

§ 14-12.10. Holding meetings or demonstrations while wearing masks, hoods, etc.No person or persons at least 16 years of age shall while wearing a mask, hood or device whereby the person, face or voice is disguised so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, hold any manner of meeting, or make any demonstration upon the private property of another unless such person or persons shall first obtain from the owner or occupier of the property his or her written permission to do so, which said written permission shall be recorded in the office of the register of deeds of the county in which said property is located before the beginning of such meeting or demonstration. (1953, c. 1193, s. 9; 1983, c. 175, ss. 3, 10; c. 720, s. 4.)

A guy who lived in my dorm owned a full-body gorilla suit which he donned for partying. (It's surprising how quickly a tequila-swigging gorilla can become intolerably tedious.) He became personally acquainted with this statute when he decided to wear his anthropoid alter ego to a local off-campus waterhole. $300 plus costs, not to mention a weekend in jail.

"To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and one seeks to stop that hate..."

Reminds me of the interviews with North Koreans I've seen on CNN. CNN has this one reporter in North Korea, and he is able to interview people, but they just intone what they obviously feel they must say. It's up to us to interpret what they might really think or whether they have enough of a mind left to think anything other than what they are supposed to say. They are not free, so I don't blame them for limiting their political thought to what they've got to say and using their minds for whatever part of life is left to them within which to be an individual. But I disrespect Americans who are free but choose to behave as if they were not free.

To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and one seeks to stop that hate....

Yes, Virginia, there are adults who believe this, and others who act as if they believe it.

Antifa is composed of socialists, communists, anarchists and Jokers who just want to watch the world burn (assemble Venn diagram). "No Trump, no wall, no USA at all" is a current chant that nicely suggests the spectrum of their messaging: Conventional lefty stuff for public consumption then eventually letting the mask slip.

The author presents on the genuinely clueless spectrum. What part of "Liberals, you'll get a bullet too" does he not understand? (Graffiti that appeared during a recent demo, I think in Washington DC, could be wrong).

The social courtesy observation is nice, and lines up with what Althouse, being a woman, puts as primary, though Derb is here taking as obvious what I think is wrong.

If you haven't already, you should read the multi-part debate between Jared Taylor and Steve Sailer over white nationalism versus Sailer's "citizenism." I am not fully convinced by either argument, and for whatever reason "white nationalism" writ large just does not sit well with me. That said, while my heart wants Sailer to be right, my brain fears Taylor is correct.

"To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and one seeks to stop that hate.... Conflating the two groups is a way for whataboutist conservatives to play down the racist rot that is spreading on the right...."

What Paco said at comment#1. What's with the writing of grown men in once-respectable publications being indistinguishable from that of dingbat high-school girls on social media? ("Hey, all the cool kids are throwing around the hip new vocabulary word "whataboutism" this week to totally shut down fascists and keep anybody from noticing how full of shit we are, and I'm cool, too! Please, please, tell me I'm cool!")

What's causing this? Xenoestrogens in the water supply? BHP in plastics? Fatherless households? Or a journalistic variant of Gresham's law?

It was easy for the "journalist" to tell that antifa is against hate. He knew it when they hurled his camera into the air, got in his face and yelled, “No fucking pictures!” What a message of love and tolerance!

I know upbringing rules because of dog training. Every dog can be made a similar good canine citizen even off leash, in spite of the wide variety of inclinations each breed brings and is in fact bred for.

If I was PresidentAnd the Congress call my nameI'd say "who doWho do you think you're fooling?"I've got the Presidential SealI'm up on the Presidential PodiumMy mama loves meShe loves meShe gets down on her knees and hugs meAnd she loves me like a rockShe rocks me like the rock of ages

"I’m on your side" calls to mind another Simon & Garfunkel song "Bridge Over Troubled Water," but I'm looking for darker iterations of the phrase, where somebody's insisting that he's on the same side as the person who's hurting him.

I think there are scenes in movies where 2 people are having an argument and one tries to make progress by pleading "I’m on your side." Or is that just a big cliché. Maybe there's a "Know Your Memes" article about it.

It takes a special combination of stupid and evil to be able to say "I'm so much on the side of radical leftists who are eager to commit violent crimes against anyone they even suspect of being opposed to them that I'll stay on their side while they commit violent crimes against me".

I disagree with the saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Sometimes, that's true, but sometimes, the enemy of my enemy is also my enemy. Which is to say, just because Antifa gets into fights with Nazis and white supremacists does not make them "the good guys." I think they are bad guys as well...maybe slightly less bad than the Nazis and white supremacists, but they are still bad guys.

I think they like being compared to brownshirts, its all part of the gaslighting. A more effective and equally true comparison might be to how Botha took power with the same tactics and imposef Apartheid.

By saying,"I'm on your side" this contemptible coward is saying he supports hurting people who won't at least pretend to agree with the party line. In fact he supports hurting random people regardless of their politics in order to send a message that debate will not be tolerated.And because of this, he expects to be spared.

The term "white supremacist" is used routinely in the MSM, but I cannot recall any instance of someone's using it to describe themselves. The Charlottesville demonstrators called themselves "white nationalists". The fact that Leftists like Kessler and the MSM refuse to call them what they call themselves is telling. Most racial minorities have organizations specifically intended to pursue their racial interests, and in the American context that is perfectly acceptable as long as they do not pursue criminal goals. The only way whites are different is that we are not a minority. But the Left tells us every day, with evident relish, that we soon will be, and their eagerness to use our dwindling numbers to damage our interests is not even masked. It therefore makes perfect sense that whites would organize to protect our own interests.

The Left Fascists understand this, and probably realize that race consciousness among white people is only going to become more pronounced and widespread as they pursue their anti-white program. By smearing white pride and white solidarity as "white supremacism", whatever the Hell that is, they hope to divide whites into warring factions. And they are having a lot of success with this tactic. Many of the commenters on this blog are at pains to establish that they are not "racist". The accepted way to do this is to assert that some other white person *is* racist. "The racists start two paces to my right", they tell us. Sure we do. And the Lefties will eat your kids last.

To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and one seeks to stop that hate.... Conflating the two groups is a way for whataboutist conservatives to play down the racist rot that is spreading on the right....

Whenever you ask yourself why the tens of millions of victims of Marxist-Leninist regimes are not as well known & mourned as are the victims of National Socialism, remember that quotation.

I'd also like to add that that sentence would have never appeared in The New Republic under Marty Peretz. Never.

"To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and one seeks to stop that hate.... Conflating the two groups is a way for whataboutist conservatives to play down the racist rot that is spreading on the right...."What a fool.

Who suggested that anarchists re-brand themselves as antifa? That's what I'd like to know. This whole thing smacks of some wealthy powerful entity behind this marketing move. Doesn't it seem so...focus grouped? Madison Avenue? I don't see these antifa individuals as being that smart and perceptive to come up with it on their own.

"To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and one seeks to stop that hate."

Funny thing is, he's right.

"What I saw was a photographer—a white guy, thirty-something, pink shorts, black tee-shirt; media affiliation, if any, still unknown—taking blows to the head and body while cradling his camera like a football recovered post-fumble. Evidently, he’d captured something the antifas didn’t want him to document. They wanted to destroy the evidence, and he wasn’t going to hand it over."

Another white supremacist bites the dust. While wearing pink shorts, no less.

The "selective-child" group is worse, because they represent a normalized state of judging individuals by the "color of their skin", which denies individual dignity, thereby representing a progressive condition in a society.

I wish someone would start recording these "peaceful assemblies" with video cameras mounted on drones. It'd be fun to watch the furious thugs with their masked faces pointed skyward shaking their fists impotently and screaming, "No cameras!"

The arrow of race hatred points from the less capable race to the more capable. Antisemites don't hate Jews because they are a dysfunctional, poverty-stricken minority; they hate them because they are successful. Malays and Indonesians and Filipinos don't hate Chinese merchants because Chinese people are stupid and violent; they hate them because they are smart and successful.

That's true, but incomplete. "Smart and successful" isn't always a sufficient condition to provoke violent backlash. Envy and resentment are human constants, but it's also true that members of the "smart and successful" groups sometimes do behave like complete assholes toward the "lower orders", which isn't terribly smart. (I believe Derb himself has remarked the shockingly oblivious and un-self-aware behavior of some "smart and successful" Chinese toward "less capable" groups, and we're all familiar with the punch-worthiness of certain "smart, successful" and egregiously patronizing white liberals toward the same.) When events go south, the smart and successful who aren't assholes get caught up in the mess, because that's what happens when things fall apart.

Envy and hatred also arise from historical grievances (real or less-than-real but carefully nurtured), even when the aggrieved group is clearly not "less capable" by any objective measure.

"To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas."

Perhaps, but as to the specific issue of his camera, how many times have white supremacists smashed it and how many times has antifa smashed it? Next time (assuming there is one) he covers a white supremacist rally (assuming there is one), will he fear the white supremacists more or his pals in antifa?

I feel like such a trendsetter, getting beaten up by a black block for taking pictures of a Berkeley demonstration in 2015.

Hey, journalist — you call yourself a "journalist" — how about not being on any side?

I agree with the sentiment, but this is a guy that's getting assaulted for no reason. It's not like I'm a fan of police brutality, which is what my demonstration was ostensibly about.

The thing he doesn't realize is, it doesn't matter. Those guys came out to beat somebody up, and today they decided it was going to be him, for holding a camera. Tomorrow it will be somebody else, for some other reason.

The Left, including this MSM tool Kessler, has been brainwashed to believe that being "racist" (i.e. just having racist thoughts or saying racist things (and yes, they have a pretty loose definition of "racism" - but even under a reasonable definition, Neo-Nazis qualify)) is literally the WORST THING EVAH! Worse than committing assaults. Worse than $million of property damage. Worse than attempted murder with a bike lock. Worse than shredding the First Amendment. They lack any sense of proportion or reality. As a Jew, I am in no way happy to see these basement-dwelling Brownshirts spewing their bile - it makes me queasy - but it's a hell of a lot less dangerous for a few losers to do their pathetic seig heils than to see American streets turned into a battlespace.

Racism (real racism - not just ideas the Left does't like) is bad. It can be argued down. It can result in social ostracization. And sometimes it can even be ignored to death because the purveys are pathetic attention seekers.

But it's the AntiFa left that is usually throwing the first punch, bottle of urine or molotiv cocktail. That makes them the instigators of violence (a crime) vs just purveyors of hate (generally not a crime). So yeah, the criminals are the worse actors.

Fernandinande: To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and the other has a different message of hate and is far more violent.

Also, antifas actually exist.

Genuine white *supremacists* are kinda like Sasquatch - there are many claims of sightings over the years, they haunt the imaginations of certain groups, but the documentation is sketchy, and tends to suggest that they're more likely to be an FBI plant/hoax than a real thing.

As opposed to "white nationalists", or "white identitarians", who are quite rare but documented to exist.

So, Ann can not bring herself to say that she's on the side that finds white supremacists repugnant? I am glad that Ann can do posts that are critical of those in the antifa group who are violent. I hope those assholes get arrested and face the full force of the law. But for some reason Ann can't work up the same outrage towards violent white supremacists. For some reason..,

I think a nation where Antifa got it's way would be at least as bad as one run by Nazis, and so far in the media, Antifa gets its way. Thank God for Trumpism. Although I have and have always had disagreements with Trumpers, I can't engine anyone else in politics having a chance against this insanity. Maybe Reagan, but since him, submission has been the defining quality of Republican politicians, and it's been a waste land.

Antifa has a long history and that history is little more than anarchists destroying stuff mostly for fun. It's political message is not popular except as unserious posturing, and its tactics are despised. Making the fighting of Nazis and white supremacy the new face of their brand is just an attempt to gain legitimacy and give themselves cover to hide their shallowness. The dumb people actually fell for it for a while. That's running out.

Antifa have shown up at one right-leaning gathering after another this year to administer random beat-downs with everything from metal poles to bike locks to bear spray, causing multitudinous injuries and large-scale property damage. Back in February, they literally set fires on the Berkeley campus, smashing windows as they rampaged through the city streets, to prevent Milo Yiannopoulos from appearing, even though the professional provocateur frequently speaks about his penchant for sex with black men, which used to count as a social-justice twofer during less polarized times.

Derb needs to get out more. Or binge watch episodes of "Cops" and "Live PD." All those dumb-ass meth'd up white guys shirtless or clad in wife-beaters getting busted after their wives called in a domestic abuse report . . . Definitely not an advertisement for race intelligence.

The right in America is individualist. The center in America is conservative, classical liberal tempered by Judeo-Christian religious/moral principles, which recognizes individual dignity and intrinsic value. The left is a progressive liberal (i.e. divergent) menagerie of groups ranging from national socialist to antifascist fascists to class/color diversitists (e.g. racists) that are organized under an established quasi-religious/moral Pro-Choice "Church".

There is no equivalence between a philosophy that recognizes individual dignity and others that deny it (e.g. color diversity, sex diversity, color supremacy).

There are tyrants and then there are tyrants. E.g., the Yezhovshina was vastly more terrible than the Porfiriato by many orders of magnitude. Diaz did not murder his opponents, he isolated them with transfers to the provinces. Arguably Mexico today would be better off under another Porfiriato. But that's the Latinos for you.

""Ann can't work up the same outrage towards violent white supremacists."

Few of us can, becuase it's 2017, and they really aren't a threat. They are already marginalized and jailed when violent, which is what you do with racists in a civil free society. It's also what you do with violent extremists like Antifa who also seem to have a lot of racists in their ranks, as well as a racist message out front. It's time we start doing with Antifa what we did to the KKK. When we get there, we can start talking about them as equal threats. Right now there is only one of these groups really threatening the country and its values, and they are being glossed over and even supported by Democrats, just like the KKK was long ago. What is it about violence, totalitarianism, and racism that Democrats and the left just can't resist? Nobody is on the Nazi side, but you are on the wrong side even by your own values.

Derb needs to get out more. Or binge watch episodes of "Cops" and "Live PD." All those dumb-ass meth'd up white guys shirtless or clad in wife-beaters getting busted after their wives called in a domestic abuse report . . . Definitely not an advertisement for race intelligence.

This is a straw man built from statistical ignorance. When discussing average IQs, we are always discussing groups, notindividuals. The point is that if you draw the distribution curves, there will be significant overlap but the group averages will not be the same. So, for example, while about 50% of European-Americans have IQs over 100, only about 16% of African-Americans do. Conversely, only about 16% of European-Americans have IQs under 85, while it's 50% for African-Americans. Still, when you are talking about millions of people, there will be many, many black Americans with higher IQs than many, many European-Americans. In other words, the existence of very smart African-Americans and very stupid European-Americans does not refute anything I have just written.

And as for domestic violence calls, it's worth noting that black women make up about 6.5% of the population but are typically about 25% of the domestic violence victims.

In the old USSR, the old bolsheviks would shout "Long Live comrade Stalin" when the NKVD agents were lining them up against the wall for execution. Same here at the New Republic. Left-wing fanatics are incorrigible.

You know, the only feeling I can muster on this is regret that the violent thugs didn't smash Mr. Kessler's head.

Seriously, you're a journalist declaring that you're on the side of violent thugs who oppose the First Amendment, and you still think you're on their side after they make it utterly clear by attacking you for trying to exercise your First Amendment rights?

"Then they came for the journalists, but I did not speak out, because although I work as a journalist, I'm a totalitarian thug in my heart."

"Genuine white *supremacists* are kinda like Sasquatch - there are many claims of sightings over the years, they haunt the imaginations of certain groups, but the documentation is sketchy, and tends to suggest that they're more likely to be an FBI plant/hoax than a real thing."

So you would like people to think. You may want to deny what you are, but your comments give you away.

So there is "no equivalency" between antifa and neo-nazis? Antifa that goes around burning buildings and assaulting people, and neo-nazis which have not even made an appearance at 90% of antifa riots, have not started a riot anywhere, have not assaulted anyone until attacked by antifa, have just tried to have peaceful (even if supremacist) rallies? No, there is no equivalence, especially when Milo and Ann Coulter and Trump are lumped in with the imaginary nazis.

The problem with "White supremacy" is when Ben Carson is being called a white supremacist and Ben Shapiro is being called a Nazi, maybe, just maybe we should take a hard look at how we're using these words.

There is another way to compare antifa and white supremacists: white supremacists are unlikely to get the laws changed and their goal is closer to getting some white respect. Even at the worst, white supremacy would still entail a nation, though an unjust one. In contrast, antifa wants to destroy the US, destroy capitalism, kill the police, burn the flag, kill republicans and ban them, and destroy free speech. That is, they want to burn it all down. I think that is WAAAY worse.

Some of the Antifas are out-and-out Maoists and admirers of the North Korean regime. I've read plausible reports that the woman who led the mob that destroyed a Confederate statue in Durham and the woman who died in Charlottesville are among them. I would think that any sensible person would realize that those two political opinions combined make someone every bit as bad as a Nazi, even leaving aside Antifa's much greater propensity to violence.

After all, Mao was the greatest mass-murderer of the 20th century, while Hitler was only in 3rd place (Stalin in 2nd). Mao's heirs are still in power in China, while Germany has been thoroughly deNazified and real Nazis have had no power anywhere in the last 72 years, though a few Fascistic regimes like Franco's hung on a lot longer. As for North Korea, Kim Jong Un was and is building nuclear bombs and intercontinental missiles and openly threatening to fire them at the U.S., most loudly during the very week of the Charlottesville riots. That makes his American supporters morally equivalent to traitors, even if they are not legally such.

All in all, it's like a "Hold my beer" joke. Ordinary Americans tend to assume that being a swastika-waving Nazi is the worst political position anyone could possibly hold, and Antifa says "Hold my beer! Let me show you one that's even worse!"

A rabbit was caught trying to escape from The Soviet Union. When the border guards asked him why, the rabbit said, "I heard a decree that all camels were to be castrated." The guards scoffed, "You're a rabbit!" The rabbit replied, "Right, but if they catch you and cut off your nuts, then prove that you're not a camel!"

To be clear, there can be no equivalance between GOOD antifa people who steal my shit, destroy my property, assault and batter me, gang up to beat people in the streets and BAD white supremacist people who say mean things while wearing stupid symbols and walking down the street in public.

Remember when journalists proudly stated that they were neutral when covering Americans in the Vietnam War...that they weren't on the side of the US troops? The famous example was some famous journo on a news program being asked if he would give away a VC ambush to protect US lives, and he proudly said he would not. Not on anyone's side, you see.

It's a cliche, but worth remembering: they aren't anti war, they aren't anti violence--they are on the other side. The Media is the Left.

It's disappointing that even today, there are people and sects that will deny individual dignity and judge others by the "color of their skin", and that a progressive psychopathy such as color, sex, etc. diversity could every be normalized in a civilized society.

Then there is the twilight faith and Pro-Choice quasi-religious/moral philosophy that denies lives deemed unworthy, inconvenient, and unviable; and Planned Parenthood et al's resumption of the Nazi's clinical cannibalism; processed under a quasi-legal layer of privacy, no less. Progress, unqualified.

Roughcoat to J.Farmer: All true. And totally beside the point, which you missed -- not for the first time -- that I was making . . . about Derb.

I guess I missed your point, too. Were you suggesting that Derbyshire doesn't understand statistical distributions, or thinks that all white people are smarter than all black people, or doesn't believe in the existence of dumb, highly dysfunctional white people? (All those assertions are false.) Otherwise, I don't get your point.

Interesting, and somewhat strange, that empty far doesn't trust leftist or generally mainstream journalists and photographers to cover and back them and censor themselves if they capture something bad. They've always done that. They always will. Those moments are only used against the right. I suppose because the people who go into that line or of the left. Or are controlled by those who are. Or are just blocked.

I think Wallace was trying to uphold the ideal of pure disinterestedness, one I support in principle and would absolutely violate in this hypothetical. (My career is not more important than their lives.)

It's not fair to ask it of Wallace, who has passed on (and whose son seems to be a newsman with some integrity). But I wonder how many journalists today would agree with Wallace that journalistic objectivity requires them not to warn their country's soldiers; and also agree with their colleagues who argue that Trump is simply too dangerous for them to be neutral and objective, and that they shouldn't be when covering him.

I don't know any neo-Nazis, KKK members, or antifas. Where do these people come from? I believe that there are more transgendered people than members of these groups. I just hope that these protests don't distract us from the more important issue of transgendered bathrooms......I don't think that America is in any danger of being taken over by the Nazis or the Maoists any time soon. I have heard rumors though that Trump supporters are trying to take over the Executive Branch of our government. These rumors are unsubstantiated,and I don't see that happening anytime soon either.

To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and one seeks to stop that hate.... Conflating the two groups is a way for whataboutist conservatives to play down the racist rot that is spreading on the right....

It's quite an achievement to be able to say that after being bashed about by a crowd of antifas. I think the message he learned at camp was that race based hate is bad, but ideological-political hate is acceptable and even desirable in the right circumstance.

"Kruschev was almost killed when German planes bombed his command post. He was south of the city when German Messerschmitts attacked Soviet bombers heading for the front. Their planes in flames, several Soviet pilots bailed out, only to be fired on by Soviet infantry who mistook them for Germans. Kruschev remembered how one pilot screamed, "I'm one of you! I'm one of you!" Then there was a burst of machine-gun fire, and it was all over."

I'm glad his camera got smashed. I hope he gets his head bashed with a bike lock next time since he is too nuanced to see thuggery happen even with his own eyes. Maybe a gaping head wound will get the point across.

The problem for Antifa, German National Socialists, Chinese Communists, Zimbabwean Marxists, "=", etc.... the civil rights rackets, generally, is that their business is to extrapolate from the minority to paint the majority with an unprincipled brush in order to manufacture leverage that will offer disparate advantage (e.g. monopoly formation) over their competing interests (e.g. political, economic, religious/moral). This is clearly an intolerable progression that denies individual dignity, intrinsic value, and often their competitors' lives.

I wish someone would start recording these "peaceful assemblies" with video cameras mounted on drones. It'd be fun to watch the furious thugs with their masked faces pointed skyward shaking their fists impotently and screaming, "No cameras!"

It would be even more fun if they were also equipped with reservoirs and spray nozzles dispensing urine on them at the same time.

I believe that Roughcoats "point" was that the visual evidence of television clearly shows that White people behave disfunctionally, so that should shut Derb up and give people of color a pass.

I am still confused, but perhaps I missed the original context. "Should shut Derb up" about what, precisely?

What I would be interested in investigating is how often similar footage featuring people of color are deep sixed so as not to "promote" racism.

This is common practice. BART in San Francisco recently refused to release surveillance video out of fear of reinforcing stereotypes. And it has been common practice for years for news articles to discuss the behavior of groups of "teens" or "juveniles" without ever making note of their race. The preponderance of cell phone cameras and social media have made this tactic more difficult to continue, however. Spend 10 minutes on WorldStarHipHop.com and you can see for yourself.

I wonder if they all think that Orwell's characters knew they were practicing goodthink or if they realize many of the characters in the books were voluntarily saying the approved phrases because they thought it sounded actually good

I guess I'm trying to say not all the Orwellian characters knew they were being Orwellian. Mike Kessler needs to do some thinking about this

Which group fields more waddling, puffy, physically pathetic specimens: tiki-torch nazis or antifas?

I wonder if that's part of the problem - poor diet and lack of physical activity among young people leading to all kinds of mental squirreliness.

I'm only half-joking. Sound body, sound mind. It's disturbing how grossly overweight, soft and slack so many young people are these days. Even moderate overweight and lack of youthful muscle tone used to be unusual among people in their late teens/twenties.

Angel-dyne observes: I'm only half-joking. Sound body, sound mind. It's disturbing how grossly overweight, soft and slack so many young people are these days. Even moderate overweight and lack of youthful muscle tone used to be unusual among people in their late teens/twenties.

I have read articles that claim that 70-75% of today's youth are unfit for military service due to obesity, drug use and educational deficits.

They probably think they would be spared in a black revolution. But they would likely be the first targets. I can just hear their final words: "Hey, bro, I'm on your side!". And the response: "Who you callin' bro, white boy?!"

Seriously, this "journalist" does not see the inconsistency of the fact that the side that he says "wants peace and is not violent" broke his camera, hides their faces and does not want their actions filmed?

mockturtle said...They probably think they would be spared in a black revolution. But they would likely be the first targets. I can just hear their final words: "Hey, bro, I'm on your side!". And the response: "Who you callin' bro, white boy?!"

His line about being on their side reminds me of Pappy O'Daniel at the end of O Brother:"Sounds like Homer Stokes is the kind of fellow that wants to cast the first stone. (Boos)Well, I'm with you folks. I'm a forgive-and-forgettin Christian."

What's happening here is much like the disillusion some on the left began to feel for Stalin in the late-1930s even before he made his pact with Hitler. Starving perhaps four to five million Ukranians to death and sending millions of other people to Siberia had been OK for them. Such people weren't the progressives and they deserved their terrible fate.

Ah, but when Stalin in his paranoia began to turn on his own, still-loyal agents of repression and death, that was too much for the Western Left. Then and only then did some of them become outraged.

We're seeing the same here. It is OK when Antifa attacks alt-right people. But outrage is the response when "Antifa Broke My Camera."

To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and one seeks to stop that hate.... Conflating the two groups is a way for whataboutist conservatives to play down the racist rot that is spreading on the right....

To be clear the so called antifa has spent most of its existence rioting against WTO and G20 meetings and pushing other left wing agendas. This is why the journalist argues he's on ttheir side although he tries to hide that. They have never been primarily opposed white supremacists mostly because those groups are powerless and thus until the left's most recent freakout opposing them was a waste of time.

White supremacists are the equivalent of Black Lives Matter and Farrakhan and other black supremacists. Antifa is an anti free speech movement. They all seem to want the same result, a totalitarian country balkanized by race.

The lack of ethics is not in the side taking. A person can be on one side and still analyze a conflict honestly and objectively and report it honestly and objectively. These qualities often will LEAD to taking a side.

The reporter's lack of ethics is in thinking that Antifa's claims to be anti-racist justifies its attacks on other people's rights to speech and assembly. Indeed there is no comparison between the two sides. Only Antifa plans as a group to criminally attack other people: the "racists" (which to Antifa and probably to the reporter means anyone who voted for Trump). Others groups have planned to defend themselves and so far only one person (even from the tiny actual racist group) has responded with violence beyond self defense. One criminal vs an entire nationwide criminal movement.

The problem with modern 'reporting' is that journalists think it's their prerogative--even their duty!--to make moral judgment on stories rather than to just report them. This is just wrong! We, the public, can analyze and judge news for ourselves. As Jack Webb used to say, 'Just the facts, ma'am.'

Berkeley needs to change their tactics before they become Riot Disneyland.

Why would they consider that a problem? Academic leaders are giving their students the opportunity they wish they had taken advantage of. What better way exists to ensure your campus fills with acolytes than to publicize that the wrong sorts of people will be violently intimidated with the full support of the administration?

Anfita's are as... supremacist as any white supremacist. + Both are Jew hating thugs.

+1,000

The difference between the two groups is that Antifa (and their Jew-hating buddies in BDS) is much closer to the center of power. Nobody in the mainstream conservative or libertarian movements is sympathetic to white supremacists (who ideologically belong on the left anyhow). It took who-you-gonna-believe-your-ideology-or-your-own-lying-eyes videos of Antifa thugs dogpiling and beating down people they assumed were Nazis, and presumably some brutal internal polling that showed that Americans overwhelmingly aren't thrilled with leftist totalitarians, for Pelosi and the Dems' house organs NYT & WaPo to about-face on Antifa.

Want to spot who the fascists are at a public event? Simple. Look for folks who all wear clothing that look alike, cover their faces, smash property and assault people who say things they don't like and assault the people who would record them while they're doing it. Those are fascists. And they're taking pages right out of the Nazi playbook.

So many layers of nonsense in that article. Whataboutism (no; it is aboutism; showing the left is as bad as the far right)... smashing a camera to hide what they're really up to from the public... antifa violent socialists being against hate. So; clue free they can't get it even when attacked in person...

However laws like this need to be enforced to be effective. Charlottesville is a rural college town with a small police force. It seemed odd to me that the Virginia State Police were not more pro-active. The only reason we know they were there is that a couple of policemen were killed in a helicopter crash after the disturbance.

I think the governor wanted things to get out of hand for political gain. I think it's not going the way he expected.

"The Old Bolsheviks died in the cellars of the Lefortovo screaming "What for?" Journalists will regret their original complaisant attitude to Antifa. By that time it will be too late."

To some degree; Americans deserve what they get for refusing to take the threat from the seriously. Not like they were not warned... and if they want to buy the left's stories about classical liberals being right wing nazis... hey; that is on them... I'll get out before it gets bad. Like my relatives got out to come here before me...

Nazis were doing terrible things. First they physically attacked those people in their own society that they did not like, such as Jews and leftists. Then they jailed those who said things they did not like, forced people opposed to them to flee or be ruined, and killed mentally ill people by gas. Then they deprived Jews of citizenship and deported them, and then killed millions of Jews in Poland and Russia and throughout Europe as well as millions of others.The author here sees an upsurge of reports of nazi-ism in this country.Yet I see no signs of so called nazis attempting to suppress speech from those opposed to them, or trying to deporting citizens. And I do see signs of suppression of speech from left wing groups, and even, in these comments, talk of depriving nazis and white supremacists of citizenship.Furthermore, there are those on the left who call anyone to the right of Mrs. Clinton a Nazi.Most young people have no knowledge of what nazis did and see them only as people hated by the left and by so called reporters.Most people in this country have lost respect for the press, and are developing sympathy for those they attack, which for some includes nazis.If this reporter was trying to create nazis in this country (something that looks hopeless today) he would do exactly what he is doing. I mean ignoring history and making naziism into a symbol of something good to hate that their friends often apply to half the people of our country.He stands for hate and so does antifa and black lives matter and occupy wall street, and their supporters. Their enemies are all are citizens who do not support them. Mr. Kessler does support them. I urge him to come to his senses, and rejoin the good people of this country.

Daniel, you make a valid point. I can easily picture today's teenagers forming neo-nazi groups just to be defiant, because that's what teens do. Just as my generation went leftist in our youth, they will go 'rightist' because the left is now the acceptable norm.

There is a profound ignorance of the long history of social democrats being used by political extremists, and acting surprised when it turns out that the people they thought were their allies are their most nightmarish enemies.

To be clear, there's no equivalency here; One group attacked Kessler, and the other...

Didn't.

Honestly, I don't see why you'd be surprised at the Antifa attacking Kessler as he attempted to document what they were doing; You might be a little unclear on the topic, but they're quite clear about the fact that they're engaged in felony assault, and conspiracy to deny civil rights. (The anti-Klan act!)

That's why they wear masks, after all. So that they can't be identified, and end up in prison.

I think there are scenes in movies where 2 people are having an argument and one tries to make progress by pleading "I’m on your side." Or is that just a big cliché. Maybe there's a "Know Your Memes" article about it.

I'm thinking of The Man with the Golden Gun, where Sheriff J. Dubyah Peppah, after a state trooper brings him up to date on who is the English guy he wants to arrest."Secret agent? On whose side?!"

"To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One"goes out and engages in their right to freedom of speech, "and one seeks"to beat up people for saying things they don't like."

Fixed it for you

The simple fact is that the people who call themselves "Nazis" look and act infinitely superior to the people ho call themselves "anti-fascist", but who ACT like a bunch of Nazi Brownshirts.

Flood was always my favorite TMBG... "Particle Man" "Istanbul" (apologies to the four lads) "Mr. Horrible" and on and on

The lyrics to We Want A Rock are weirdly appropriate, "someone in this town is trying to burn the Play house down" ... but what exactly did they mean:

Where was I? I forgotThe point that I was makingI said if I was smart that I wouldSave up for a piece of stringAnd a rock to wind the string around

Everybody wants a rockTo wind a piece of string aroundEverybody wants a rockTo wind a piece of string around

Throw the crib door wideLet the people crawl insideSomeone in this townIs trying to burn the playhouse downThey want to stop the ones who wantA rock to wind a string aroundBut everybody wants a rockTo wind a piece of string around

Throw the crib door wideLet the people crawl insideSomeone in this townIs trying to burn the playhouse downThey want to stop the ones who wantA rock to wind a string aroundBut everybody wants a rockTo wind a piece of string around

If I were a carpenter I'dHammer on my piglet, I'dCollect the seven dollars and I'dBuy a big prosthetic foreheadAnd wear it on my real head

Everybody wants prostheticForeheads on their real headsEverybody wants prostheticForeheads on their real heads

Throw the crib door wideLet the people crawl insideSomeone in this townIs trying to burn the playhouse downThey want to stop the ones who wantProsthetic foreheads on their headsBut everybody wants prostheticForeheads on their real heads

Throw the crib door wideLet the people crawl insideSomeone in this townIs trying to burn the foreheads downThey want to stop the ones who wantA rock to wind a string aroundBut everybody wants a rockTo wind a piece of string around